- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
A disk buffer (scratch cleaner as you call it) only really cleans the disc. The reason that they're not a very good investment, is because when you get a scratched disc, if its deep enough to be cutting into the encoded layer of the disc, then a cleaning would not do any good at all, seeing as the disc cleaner cannot rewrite those pits and divots(sp?) that the laser reads.
If it is not all the way down to that layer, which there is no real way to tell unless you get it cleaned, then the buffer removes any rough edges on the scratch (not visible to the eye) and makes it so that the laser can still penetrate down to the recorded layer.
All that said, there's no real way to know for sure how deep the scratch is until you run it through the machine, so I would encourage you to go to a video game store that sells used games and ask them to run it through thier machine.